“Hey, Han Yeoreum. What the hell was that earlier?”
The moment break time started, Gyeong-ho came charging straight at me. Even his question lived up to expectations. I scowled and glared at him.
“You want to die?”
“Huh? Ah! Hey, I already apologized for that earlier.”
“You really want to die, don’t you?”
“No… I was just upset that you ran off like that yesterday.”
“Just bring your face here.”
“Whoa! Okay, okay, fine. I’ll buy you ice cream today, hyung’s treat.”
That damn ice cream. If he really did buy it, I swore I’d get a cone just to smash it in his face, I vowed, checking the cover of the book that had so pitifully sacrificed itself against my face earlier. Unable to hold it in any longer, Gyeong-ho lowered his body and whispered to me.
“Hey, Han Yeoreum.”
“What?”
“What was that about earlier, I said.”
“What was what?”
“What do you mean what. I mean Choi Seol.”
The question I’d wanted to avoid had finally been thrown out.
“Did you actually start talking to that guy?”
“It’s not like that.”
The sharpness that slipped into my voice without meaning to must have carried, because I felt eyes on me again. It had been like this ever since class started. Faces that clearly wanted to ask me something. A few had actually come to ask. This was where Gyeong-ho came in handy.
“Han Yeoreum. Did you and Choi Seol earlier—”
“Whoa! Yeoreum here is currently talking to me, is he not? Scram, the lot of you.”
In the simple, brutish hierarchy of who could fight best, Gyeong-ho ranked fairly high up. While Gyeong-ho was busy chasing the others off, I quickly glanced over at Choi Seol’s seat. Thankfully, he seemed to have gone somewhere.
“Or, why’d he butt in between us earlier?”
Won’t somebody chase this guy off too.
“Even other people could probably tell you went too far.”
“What’d I even do?”
“I thought my nose was going to break, you know? My lips too…”
I cut myself off mid-sentence. The spot where Choi Seol’s finger had touched and then pulled away still felt itchy. As I absentmindedly bit at my lower lip, I felt an obvious stare land right there.
“It’s fine now. It was really red earlier, but it’s almost gone now.”
“Almoooost?”
Glaring daggers at him again, Gyeong-ho smirked sheepishly while reading the room.
“It’s a tiny bit red still, but you flush easily anyway… Yeoreum-ah, let’s talk this out like civilized humans, fists down, I already said it was all my fault.”
“Forget it. I’m busy, go away.”
I unclenched my fist and went back to focusing on the book. Thankfully, the cover that had collided with my face was clean.
“Anyway, this is a new book, huh. Did you buy it?”
Snapped out of my thoughts, I looked up at Gyeong-ho.
“Aren’t you gone yet?”
“Didn’t you say you had no money for this? Wasn’t it just the other day you said you’d save up for it?”
Completely ignoring everything I’d just said, he clearly had no intention of leaving. By the way, this guy knew I liked this book.
“I borrowed it.”
“Borrowed? From who?”
Why did I even say that.
“…Just someone. Someone I know.”
I immediately regretted that too. Gyeong-ho’s eyes narrowed, suspicious.
“Someone you know? Did our Yeoreum have some other friend I don’t know about?”
“Anyone listening would think you’re my only friend.”
“Didn’t you say I’m your only best friend?”
“Who said… Forget it, you know my mom goes to temple, right? It’s someone I know from there.”
“Ah. Religious activities.”
There was no way I could tell him it was Choi Seol who gave it to me. Just having him talk to me briefly earlier had already made the stares unbearable enough; if word got out I’d borrowed something from him, it would definitely cause some kind of uproar one way or another. And having to explain yesterday’s events just to deal with that was even less appealing.
“Anyway, don’t touch it while I’m reading. This is a new book, so I have to handle it carefully and return it.”
I had no intention of repeating this morning’s embarrassing scene.
“It really is spotless. No fold marks at all, totally brand new. And he lent this to you first?”
I shouldn’t have mentioned it was new. At Gyeong-ho’s eyes turning sly, I regretted it all over again.
“Is it a girl, by any chance?”
“Can you just go away already?”
“Seriously, is it?”
To my friend, who apparently interpreted my eviction notice as an answer, I turned dead serious, meaning every word.
“What does gender have to do with anything here?”
“If it’s a girl, I figured she might be into you.”
“Are you insane. Don’t you know it’s the worst to twist a simple favor into something like that?”
“Hey, this isn’t just a simple favor though. Think about it. It’s clearly a brand new book, and she just readily lent it to you like that? You know how hard that is, right? What if her mom found out? She lent it to you knowing she might get smacked on the back for it.”
Put that way, it was tempting to believe, but the moment I recalled exactly who’d lent me this book, I found myself shaking my head instinctively. Right, there’s no way Choi Seol would do that.
“No way that’s it.”
“I’m telling you, it’s obvious.”
“Gyeong-ho, can you please just go? I need to read…”
“Choi Seol!”
Ugh, my heart. I had no idea why it had been acting so unruly ever since yesterday. Choi Seol, about to walk through the front classroom door, stopped at someone’s call and stepped back out into the hallway. Kids gathered around him at the center. Choi Seol had a reputation for being intimidating, but he wasn’t the kind of person you needed to be wary of like the typical so-called troublemakers.
Kids always flocked around Choi Seol. He himself tended to let people stay close, except on his worst days. Yesterday had probably been one of those worst days. Today, his mood seemed pretty good. Which, unfortunately for me, was inconvenient.
With him surrounded by kids like that all day, there was no way I could even approach him, let alone deliver my message. Given what had happened this morning, even just getting close would obviously draw attention. One way or another, I had no choice but to feel timid about it.
“Don’t you think Choi Seol’s seriously impressive?”
Gyeong-ho, showing no intention of returning to his own seat until the bell rang, let out an admiring remark.
“When I first heard he beat up some troublemaker, I figured he was just some vicious thug. But he’s got the face, the body, good at sports and studying too, and on top of that, he’s got this ability to pull people toward him like that. Ah! So jealous. Even the teachers don’t say anything no matter what he does.”
I couldn’t tell if I should take that as venting or praise, but it made me laugh regardless.
“You jealous?”
“Hey. Jealousy needs to be at least somewhat within reach to count. That’s straight-up unreachable.”
“…Yeah, that’s true.”
If it hadn’t been for yesterday’s chance encounter, I probably wouldn’t have exchanged more than a few words with Choi Seol all year, let alone borrowed a book like this. Maybe Choi Seol genuinely didn’t feel any need to talk to me anymore. That would explain why he’d left the book here in advance like this.
Still, I wanted to thank him properly. I also needed to swap our bags back soon. And I should ask him whether it really was a new book.
I glanced down at the book. It probably wasn’t actually new. It wasn’t the kind of smell you got from a bookstore. I couldn’t quite put it into words, but it was a scent that had slowly soaked in from being close to its owner. Maybe that was why my chest kept fluttering, just a little, every time I looked at this book.
Choi Seol was still surrounded by kids. I’ll wait and greet him when he’s alone. There’d surely be a chance at least once before lunch, after the extra class ended.
“Alright, that’s all for today.”
In the end, I never got the chance to say it. I’d waited all day for an opening, but there hadn’t been a single moment to talk to him. I really felt Choi Seol’s popularity firsthand today. Having kept myself on edge during every single break, I was thoroughly exhausted and had no motivation left for anything. Saying a simple thank-you turning out to be this hard. From his perspective as the one who’d lent it, he might think I was being pretty shameless.
Honestly, I had things to say too. What about my book bag he’d said he’d return at school? Didn’t he need to get his own bag back too? He could’ve said something like when he wanted it returned, or to read it carefully since he’d never even opened it. Or even told me to treat him to something later. There was plenty to say, plenty of business to handle. Or maybe it just meant he didn’t care either way how things went.
Dejected, I let my shoulders droop. Choi Seol had vanished long ago. I’d thought about watching for him on the way home after class, but that felt too much like something a stalker would do, so I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Should’ve just asked Gyeong-ho for that ice cream after all. I regretted sending him off early just in case. Since things had come to this, I had no choice but to resort to a last measure.
I opened my bag and pulled out a pen and notebook. Let me at least leave a note. It wasn’t even a love letter between a guy and a girl, just a note between two guys, and the mere thought made my hands and feet curl up in secondhand embarrassment, but it felt like today couldn’t be allowed to pass without it. If I wrote at least this much, he’d at least not mistake me for being shameless. If I wrote this, slipped it into Choi Seol’s bag, and left it on his desk, he’d see it eventually—
“Still here, huh.”
“Oh my god!”
Startled, I dropped the pen I’d been holding. It rolled across the desk before tumbling to the floor, where a large hand picked it up. Recalling the memory of that hand touching me more than once, I lifted my head following the pen, and there stood Choi Seol. Seeing him meet the one condition I’d wanted all day—being alone—I, as always, found myself unable to say anything.
“Thanks for lending me the book?”
It was Choi Seol who spoke first. But the sentence he uttered sounded oddly familiar, his intonation as stiff as someone reading aloud from a textbook. I soon realized his eyes were fixed on the notebook spread open on my desk. The contents of the note I’d been about to write to him. My face flared up instantly.
“That’s, well, I mean…”
I tried covering it with my hand belatedly, but it was already too late.
“Don’t tell me. Were you trying to write that to me?”
I was mortified enough to want to disintegrate into fine dust and disappear. What else can I do. Since things had already gone this far, I figured I might as well accomplish my goal anyway, so I jumped up from my seat.
“Thanks for the book. I’ll read it well.”
My voice came out shaking and cracking, an absolute mess. My face was probably bright red too. I’d never been this nervous talking to anyone in my entire life. Choi Seol seemed to have caught my state precisely too. At first he looked slightly taken aback, but then he let out a short laugh.
“Anyone watching would think you’re confessing your feelings.”
Even knowing he was just joking, it still struck a nerve.
“Isn’t this greeting a little late, though?”
“Huh?”
Don’t tell me he’d been waiting? If today really had passed without this, it would’ve been a genuine disaster.
“You seemed busy.”
“I wasn’t busy though?”
“You were talking to those guys the whole break.”
“Most of that was them talking at me one-sidedly.”
“…Still.”
Answering timidly while reading his reaction, I noticed Choi Seol’s eyes narrow slightly. Did beating around the bush annoy him? But saying I’d been waiting for him to be alone because I hated the attention from others felt even stranger to admit.
“There’s a tteokbokki place near the stream that’s actually really good, but barely any of our school’s kids know about it, so there’s almost no chance of running into anyone we know.”
Listening blankly to this out-of-nowhere mention of street food, Choi Seol slightly lifted the corner of his mouth and asked.
“Want to go?”
“…Me?”
“Well, who else is here?”
Choi Seol, pretending to glance around on purpose, turned his gaze back to me, waiting for an answer. Various questions flickered through my mind at his proposal, but my hesitation didn’t last long.
“I’ll go.”
“Bring your bag and come out.”
Right. There was the bag too. I quickly grabbed the paper bag I’d hung by my desk. But Choi Seol was already heading out of the classroom. It’ll be fine. I could hand it over on the way, or swap it at the food stand. I hurried to sling my bag over my shoulder and followed after Choi Seol.
